I hate it, I hate every minute of it. I wake up and I want to cry, I want to cry all day and then I go to bed and I can't sleep, I toss and turn for hours because I'm dreading waking up again.
It's not because I don't love my children, believe me they are everything to me. And I know I should feel 'greatful' as my MIL tells me repeatedly and scornfully. I know I've been given a life so many women would love. But I don't. I can't, no matter how hard I've tried to.
If I could change my circumstances I would in a heartbeat, the harrowing truth is, I can't. My DH works 40 hours a week. His wage isn't great and we have a lot of debt we are working through. Money is more than tight, it's fairly non existant. The only way we'd be able to improve our financial situation is for me to work, which I'd love. I always worked until health issues blighted me during my second pregnancy. The problem with working, is that I'd have to work at LEAST 60 hours a week. And even then, we wouldn't earn enough combined to pay for childcare as well as rent, council tax, utility costs and food. Never mind clothing, school dinners etc. We have no family willing to help, it's hard enough getting their grand parents to see them more than three times a year (all of them live ten minutes away, if that!) and neither of us has any friends anymore.
I hate the endless struggle of running a home, a family, a relationship and budgeting. I find it mind numbing! I wake up any time between 5am and 6am depending on when the youngest decides to start the day. My DH gets up with us, but he showers and eats before heading off to work for 7am. I have two children with additional needs, DD has aspergers and ADHD and is in CAMHS for suspected depression (can you believe!) due to years of bullying. DS1 has aspergers, ADHD and ODD. Plus the toddler and all three mixed means all out war. And I don't mean they nit pick and argue, I mean they batter each other. Even if I separate them, they find a way to annoy the other so much, that they turn into the hulk and frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if a person shaped hole was left in a solid wall. Combine this with the 3 hours sleep I've had a night for years...... You are looking at a mother crying into her coffee daily. I get attacked all the time, I'm constantly covered in cuts and bruises from splitting up fights. I never have time to even brush my teeth or hair and I refuse to wake up half an hour earlier, I'm not waking up at 4.30am/5am and having even less than my allotted 3 hours. I stumble out of the house at 8.20am to do the school run, I always look sick. My body aches every day, I have had a headache for 6 months. No kidding. Its there every day.
After the school run comes the mammoth task of cleaning up the mess from the night before and the morning. I tend to be in and out of micro sleeps between 5pm and 10pm. But as soon as my head hits that pillow, my body is ready to party and my brain decides its going to plan a stop to world hunger and the meaning of life in general. I can't relax, baths just annoy me. I've tried lounging but it's impossible. I think it's an aversion due to my mother getting drunk in the bath for hours every night. So I shower, provided I'm not so exhausted I'm slurring my words, which isn't unusual.
I clean for hours a day, u pick the kids up from school and nursery. Which by the way is three different schools. I come home, I clean some more, I break up the boxing match, I clean some more, I clean up the cup that just got smashed even though is was meant to be shatter proof plastic, I make them a snack, I down my 6th coffee of the day(I tried a few days without to improve my sleep, but I was out like a light at 12pm 😦), I prepare dinner while stopping the toddler from licking the cat again, I stop another fight that just broke out because "Minecraft Is well better than Mario", I clean some more, I put dinner in the oven, I wipe the remains of cat food off the toddlers face, I move cat food, I clean up yet another mess caused by a fight, I locate toddler, I serve dinner, I stop them stabbing each other, I clean food off window, and so on and so on.
When DH comes home, at 6pm, he always says yo me..... "What's the matter? Why you so stressed?" which is usually the time I decide to sit in the toilet for ten minutes to save me being the one who left the person shaped hole in the wall.
And I feel a little better now I have ranted. My apologies mummy's and daddy's.